Emily Anthes in The New York Times:
It was a cold, gray afternoon in December, and at the American Museum of Natural History, a half million leaf-cutter ants were hunkered down in their homes. The ants typically spend their days harvesting slivers of leaves, which they use to grow expansive fungal gardens that serve as both food and shelter. On many days, visitors to the museum’s insectarium can watch an endless river of ants transporting leaf fragments from the foraging area to the fungus-filled glass orbs where they live.
It was hard to blame them. It was a biting, blustery day — and the end of a long, eventful year for the colony. The tropical ants, which had been harvested in Trinidad and nurtured in Oregon, had never set foot in New York City before last December, arriving like 500,000 insect ingénues. It took time for the ants to find their footing and for museum employees to learn how to create a happy home for them.
More here.
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